Herron’s
Whisper
Recipes
(Provided by Rena Dennison, Lanope Tribe)
Fry Bread
3 cups flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups warm water
Mix ingredients together in a bowl. Dough should be like
soft biscuit dough. Drop by rounded tablespoons into flour.
Stretch out between hands, or pat to slightly flatten. Gently
lay into skillet or kettle of hot shortening. Brown on one
side, turn and brown on the other side. Remove from shortening.
Drain in a brown paper bag. Serve hot.
Possum Grapes
Gather ripe possum grapes (the kind that sour after the
first frost), wash and stew them in water. When cooked, mash
them in the same water. Let them sit to settle the seeds
to the bottom. Strain off the juice. Bring juice to a boil
and thicken with corn meal. Keep cooking until corn meal
is completely cooked. Can be served hot or cold.
Grandmother Woolf’s Pumpkin
Cook mashed pumpkin in a saucepan. Add maple sugar or brown
sugar to taste. You may also add chopped walnuts. Serve hot.
Succotash
Dried lima beans
Dried corn
Meat drippings or broth
Onions
Garlic
Carrots and celery (if desired)
Take your time to do this right. Put all ingredients except
the corn into a pot and begin to cook them over a low heat.
Simmer until beans start to swell and become tender. Add
corn. Cook until corn and beans are done.
Hominy
Hominy can be used to make soup. Add onion, garlic, salt
and meat such as deer or buffalo to water. Some grocery stores
now sell rabbit, which can also be used. Cook the meat down
to make a broth. Add vegetables that Native Americans would
have had. Be sure to include the hominy. Most corn soups
have a clear broth to them.
Kanahena
2 cups water
1 cup corn meal, moistened with cold water
1 teaspoon salt
Bring water to a boil. Add salt. Wet corn meal and add slowly
to the boiling water. Stir until done. (My children like
for me to add ground walnuts and maple syrup.)
Recipe from “A Cherokee Story,” by Susan L. Roth
Teas
Sassafras, mint, spearmint, peppermint
Fried Hominy
Drain hominy. Fry in a little butter with onions and meat.
Add eggs and fry until eggs are done. Serve hot.
Mashed Pumpkin
Cover the bottom of a pan with water; add pumpkin (not pumpkin
pie filling) and a pinch of salt. Slowly heat until pumpkin
begins to plop. Add ground walnuts, pecans, or hickory nuts
and sweeten to taste with maple sugar or syrup. Serve hot.
You can add a little butter as long as you let the children
know that butter came with the Europeans.
Grape Dumplings
Bring 48 ounces of grape juice to a slow boil. Add one-quarter
cup of sugar. Drop in dumplings. Reduce heat, cover and simmer
for 15 minutes. Serve hot.
Dumplings: Mix 1-1/2 cups flour with 2 teaspoons baking
powder and one-half teaspoon salt. Cut in 1 tablespoon shortening
and mix with three-quarters cup of milk. Turn onto floured
board, knead, roll out thin, cut into 1-inch squares and
drop one at a time into boiling juice.
